Series.1 - Why do we need to know Tawheed?

Series.1

Why do we need to know Tawheed?

'What is tawheed?' you ask any Muslim 'Is it the oneness of Allaah?' he would reply 'What's that?' You ask again. 'I'm not too sure' he would say. This is the kind of scenario which the Muslims are involved in, and what a sad state of affairs it is when we cannot even explain the basics of our religion to those around us.

The cure for ignorance is knowledge, and in order to cure ourselves we have to take time-out to learn about this beautiful religion, even if it means reading articles such as this!


The Reality of Tawheed

Literally Tawheed means "making something one". When the term Tawheed is used in reference to Allaah it means that Allaah is One. The opposite of tawheed is 'Shirk' which is to associate partners with Allaah by giving that which belongs to him, to others

So there are 3 categories of Tawheed are:

1. Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah (lit. "Maintaining the Unity of Lordship")

2. Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat (lit. "Maintaining the Unity of Allaah's Names and Attributes")

3. Tawheed al-'Ebaadah (lit. "Maintaining the Unity of Allaah's Worship")

In this series we will Insha Allaah try to keep the point to bare minimum not wasting your time or making the mails unnecessary, and also make the mail in points to be clear and easily readable.

To PATent or not to PATent?

The importance of patents would, perhaps, be best highlighted by the fact that the most prestigious prize in the world, the Nobel Prize, was made possible because of a patent over dynamite granted to Alfred Nobel. Every aspect of human life has been pervaded by patented inventions, from electric lighting (patents held by Edison and Swan) and plastic (patents held by Baekeland), to ballpoint pens (patents held by Biro) and microprocessors (patents held by Intel).

The importance that companies attach to patents can be judged from the fact that IBM expects to file 3,250 patents this year and 64% of the total revenues of Philips come from patent royalties rather than from manufacturing. Pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Merck exist because of patents.

A patent is an exclusive right granted for an invention, which is a product or a process that provides, in general, a new way of doing something, or offers a new technical solution to a problem. In law, a patent is a property right and can be gifted, inherited, assigned, sold or licensed.

Yours Patented.

Should you quit your job or stay put?

Experience is something that cannot be given as a capsule. A one-year experience is worth one year, and a five-year experience is worth five years.

You cannot get five years experience in one year! It is also essential that five years of experience shouldn’t be one year’s experience five times over.

This is what critically plagues the Indian industry. The government is our largest employer; but take the case of, say, a Railways clerk.

While his designation changes from that of a junior to a senior to a head clerk and so on, even after 10 years, the content of his job remains the same. That’s one year’s experience 10 times over.

What is critical is to build expertise as part of experience. There are progressive organisations that identify the potential of its employees and provide them with multiple facets of experience.

At mega-corporations such as GE or Citibank, employees job-hop within the organisation to gain expertise in different domains. What is essential is that as the employee gains experience in different areas, his thinking, his personality and his management skills are honed.

It is this learning that is critical as you grow. One must understand that working life is not about designations but about learning and expertise.

WHERE DO YOU STand?

Manners: The lost art of DRIVING

Manners are going the same way to as the Dodos and the Dinosaurs. And the place where they are most noticeable by their absence are the Dubai roads. It would be very unfair to paint all with the same brush, but unfortunately one cannot help list the Arab vehicles topping the list.

Because they are everywhere. Flashing the lights behind their dark tanned SUVs or using the roads to play some road tricks as if they are participating in the camel races. Next on the offence list are the impatient lot blaring horns even if there is a split second delay on the traffic lights.

We cannot blame a community for the actions of few. But sadly this arrogance can be seen seeping elsewhere too. Why would otherwise a nation known to be so generous become so greedy to extract every ounce of money in terms of house rent or VOIPs.

Usury or interest is prohibited in Islam, but as my colleague laments is pouncing on helpless residents need of shelter lawful money? While taking riba (interest), one is alteast only taking the unlawful from his money at bank, but here someone's savings are being eroded and some children toys are being depleted.

This mad rush of more money, more and more would not end. As Quran puts it, "The mutual increase in amassing wealth, would continue till you reach your graves". The problem with the rat race is, even if you win, you are still a RAT. Remember as one speaker aptly said, “Islam would spread faster, if you drive a little nicer".